Wormrot - Hiss

Why is the grindcore album making me sad?

(Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on December 20th 2022) 

Grindcore is a genre that I’ve grown quite fond of over time, but one that I always find myself being exceptionally picky with. For every band that puts together blistering riff assaults, there’s a handful that feel like shitposts that never go beyond making some fast 10-second tracks. Those obviously do have their place in the genre, but bands that focus on that miss the forest for the trees. That being said, the 21st century has treated the style kindly, as has been the case with metal as a whole. One of the bands that has helped the style immensely is Wormrot, the topic of this here review. The Singaporean trio has put out some of the most intense grind of the 21st century so far, all while at the same time evolving as musicians and expanding their sound. Hiss, their fourth release, is another chapter in this ongoing saga, and one that as of right now is the crown jewel of their discography.

As expected of a grindcore band, Wormrot hits fast and hard, their energy being so intense you feel like the music itself is going to physically start hitting you at any moment. At the same time though, a lot of care has gone into the compositions themselves, despite their brevity. For an album where the staggering majority of songs are sub-2 minutes in length, they’re pretty elaborate, filled to the brim with ideas that fit seamlessly within the already established core. The inaugural “The Darkest Burden” is a perfect example of this, with its black metal-esque tremolo riffing setting the tone for what’s to come, all while building upon ideas that were first heard on Voices, and that’s just one of the sounds one can spot here. Hiss is a cohesive mixture of sounds that range from the crunchy thrashiness of “Behind Closed Doors” and “Seizures”, to more skramz-imbued moments like on “Weeping Willow”. All this is balanced out with more grinding moments on tracks like on “Hatred Transcending” and “Vicious Circle”, which are further elevated by Vijesh’s erratic behaviour behind the kit. The man just beats the shit out of his drums, and it honestly never stops being a blast to listen to.

Another notable aspect of Hiss, and one that was quite the surprise, was the inclusion of violinist Myra Choo. At first glance, including such an instrument on a grind album seems like a complete misfire, but it turns out that she provides some of the most harrowing and resonant moments here. The instrumental “Grieve” is brimming with suffocating dissonance, and it somehow manages to be as overwhelming as the more metallic moments here. The aforementioned “Weeping Willow” also features a haunting solo that slithers in and out of the instrumentation. “Glass Shards”, the closer, has high expectations to live up to, not only as the end to this rollercoaster of an album, but also as Wormrot’s longest song to date, clocking in at four and a half minutes. Frankly, the band knocked it out of the park here. All of the ideas they’ve displayed throughout the 32 minute runtime coalesce here, and result in a powerful emotional release that wraps everything up in a neat little bow. Ferocious tremolo riffing gives way to almost shoegaze-like strumming, with Arif’s desperate howling culminating into this explosion of feeling, the violin being a bringer of solemn melody, rather than dissonance. I’ve never experienced grindcore this emotionally intense, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything.

Which brings me to the next important point worth discussing about Hiss, that being Arif himself. The guy is an essential part of Wormrot’s sound, with his vocals covering such a vast range that listing them all would do nothing but increase this review’s word count. Screaming, gutturals, yelling, even some chanting cleans on “Broken Maze”. You want to hear a specific vocal style, chances are he utilises it somewhere in here. What makes this all the more noteworthy though is the lyrics he spews here. While the band had already moved on from stuff like “Butt Krieg is Showing” by the time we got to Voices, the lyrics have never felt as personal and intimate as they have here. It feels like Arif and Rasyid are laying their inner demons out, and the former’s performance really helps magnify that. Their anxieties, anger and sorrow are on full display here, and the performance really drives those feelings home. The already compelling “Glass Shards” becomes outright heart-wrenching by the final verse, and it’s all thanks to just how intense Arif sounds. This is made all the more sad by the fact that this is his final album with the band, due to a variety of circumstances that they have decided to keep private. Nevertheless, he gave it 110%, as he has done on their previous work, and I can’t help but respect that.

As for the production, it’s different compared to the rest of their output, but by no means is it bad. It’s probably the most polished they’ve sounded to date, though that is not to say the band has become sterile, just a bit more proper so that they can accommodate for their new additions to their sound, both stylistic and instrumental. The guitars are deliciously meaty, the drums pack a wallop, and for the first time in the band’s history of recordings, there’s actually a bass. The band has always been a guitar-drums-vocals power trio, so hearing them add this extra depth and crunch to their sound was a pleasant surprise. It fills up the space nicely and provides extra heft and momentum to the riffs, even if it doesn’t do anything particularly extraordinary. As for the mixing, it’s as crisp as the rest of the production, and it really lets you pick out all the little details without much trouble.

Truthfully, the only reason I’m giving Hiss a 99 instead of a 100 is because I don't really care much about “Unrecognisable”, the album’s obligatory 10-second song. Other than that, we might just have one of the best grind albums of the 21st century so far in our hands. Wormrot has managed to craft something that is both sonically and emotionally powerful in a genre that’s primarily known for its goofiness and rawness. Furthermore, they managed to further expand their sound without losing their identity, or moving away from their roots. Arif might be gone, but he has undoubtedly left his mark here, and to pretend otherwise would make one delusional. This is just the album of the year, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it.

Highlights: everything but Unrecognisable

Rating: 99%